Short Book Reviews: Volume VI
Short Book Reviews: Volume VI
The dignity of work, the terror of nuclear war, the artifices of dating, the terror of nearly dying, the sublimity of the cosmos, plus Cthulhu, very old fantasy and very new, and some science fiction.
Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work by: Matthew B. Crawford
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by: Salman Rushdie
He Who Fights with Monsters 6: A LitRPG Adventure by: Shirtaloon
He Who Fights with Monsters 7: A LitRPG Adventure by: Shirtaloon
I did not quite manage to get this out before departing for Dar es Salaam on a week-long trip, thus the delay, for any of you still keeping track at home.
You may be wondering why I went to Dar, or where Dar es Salaam even is. I have found in my discussions with people that they are most likely to recognize the word Tanzania, and next most likely to recognize the term Zanzibar. But most people (at least that I’ve talked to, which is a small sample) have never heard of Dar es Salaam. Well, Dar es Salaam is the biggest city in Tanzania (though no longer it’s capital) and Zanzibar is an island off the coast of Dar, and for a long time it was the more important location. Zanzibar has been an important spot in the region since the 9th century, while Dar (as the cool kids call it) was only founded as adjunct to Zanzibar in the 1860s, before eventually eclipsing it decisively in the mid-20th century. At this point it’s a city of eight million, which makes it the 6th largest city in Africa.
So like most African nations, Tanzania is something of a modern and artificial creation, but Zanzibar has been a thing for a very long time. However, as important as Zanzibar was historically, its importance paled in comparison to that of Kilwa Kisiwani — at least up until the point that the Portuguese appeared on the scene. Kilwa Kisiwani (hereafter just Kilwa) is also an island and it was “the center of the Kilwa Sultanate, a medieval Swahili sultanate whose authority at its height in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries stretched the entire length of the Swahili Coast.”
Visiting the ruins of Kilwa was the central excursion of the trip. (Though I did also visit Zanzibar, because everyone does.) The visit to Kilwa was not my idea. I have a friend who lives in Dar, which he fled to from Canada after being canceled multiple times. (Mostly for being a man of the extreme left, while also being a TERF.) He’s been dreaming of visiting Kilwa for decades, and it would have been a shame if he got as close as Dar and didn’t manage to finally check it off, especially since there’s a reasonably good chance he’ll be moving back to Canada in August.
So visit it, we did. Here’s a picture of me standing in front of Kilwa’s Grand Mosque, which was the largest mosque in sub-Saharan Africa until the 16th century. (The oldest part of the building dates back to the 11th century, but what you see here was built in the early 14th century.)
Non-Fiction Reviews
Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work
Published: 2009
256 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
Finding meaning in the world through crafting difficult things and more generally an ode to working in the trades rather than working at a desk.
What's the author's angle?
Part of the appeal of the book is Crawford’s long, strange journey from electrician, to philosophy major, from motorcycle mechanic to president of a think tank, with numerous other stops in between. This gives him a very broad perspective on all the different angles of the problem.
Who should read this book?
Crawford has become one of my favorite authors. He really digs deep into the problem of meaning everyone seems to be experiencing lately without ever really engaging in anything that is overtly partisan. As such if anything about my description sounds interesting I would read this book.
Specific thoughts: Have we been boiling the frog?
There was a time when everyone was a craft person, it was impossible to be anything else, but gradually two things happened. Work became commoditized, and excellence became abstract. Had this happened overnight, we might have just rejected the change, as something completely foreign to human flourishing. Unfortunately it came upon us far more gradually, and like the apocryphal story of the frog being boiled, we never really noticed we were in trouble until it was too late.
Possibly you reject this characterization. Or possibly you have an intuitive sense that something is wrong, but lacking concrete evidence it’s hard to know if you’re just idealizing the past. Perhaps you watch Office Space and nod along with Peter says:
Michael, we don't have a lot of time on this earth! We weren't meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about mission statements.
But is there any concrete evidence? There’s a lot of great stuff in this book, but I only have space to highlight one very interesting statistic:
Given their likely acquaintance with such a cognitively rich world of work, it is hardly surprising that when Henry Ford introduced the assembly line in 1913, workers simply walked out. One of Ford’s biographers wrote, “So great was labor’s distaste for the new machine system that toward the close of 1913 every time the company wanted to add 100 men to its factory personnel, it was necessary to hire 963.”1
This would seem to be a crucial moment in the history of political economy. Evidently, the new system provoked natural revulsion. Yet, at some point, workers became habituated to it. How did this happen? One might be tempted to inquire in a typological mode: What sort of men were these first, the 100 out of 963 who stuck it out on the new assembly line? Perhaps it was the men who felt less revulsion because they had less pride in their own powers, and were therefore more tractable. Less republican, we might say. But if there was initially such a self-selection process, it quickly gave way to something more systemic.
Perhaps Crawford is reaching here. Perhaps the difference between work before the assembly line and work after it was not as great as he alludes to. But how would we know? There are still artisan’s out there and perhaps we could compare their average life satisfaction with that of the average assembly line worker, or the average office drone. I suspect that if we did that the difference would not be as stark as Crawford would like, but that there would nevertheless be a difference.
Is it an important difference? Is it something so big that it threatens society? Was Fordism really the beginning of the end as Huxley predicted in Brave New World? I doubt it, but it’s just one more thing to add to the long list of differences between the modern world and the historical one, differences which could be good, but mostly seem bad.
Nuclear War: A Scenario
By: Annie Jacobson
Published: 2024
400 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
How a hypothetical nuclear war might play out, and how it might all start with the launch of a single North Korean ICBM.
What's the author's angle?
Jacobson is, by some accounts, a writer in search of sensationalism, and there’s nothing more sensational than nuclear war.
Who should read this book?
Anybody who wants to feed their doomerism, or anyone who wants a detailed account of the crazy plans in place for fighting a nuclear war.
Specific thoughts: Weak as a “scenario”, mostly strong everywhere else
As long as Jacobson is describing standard operating procedure or bare facts (i.e. it would take 33 minutes for a North Korean ICBM to reach Washington DC) the book is fascinating and important. But as I mentioned she does go for sensationalism, also since it’s a scenario she feels the need to add narrative flourishes which often left me scratching my head. Let’s start with the sensationalism:
[***Mild Spoilers***]
After launching the single ICBM, NK also launches a missile from a submarine at California. Rather than targeting an area of high population density (like LA) they target the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. Jacobsen says that "energy officials" call this the "Devil's Scenario" and that of all the places NK could target, the power plant is the worst. Here's how the book describes it:
Directly attacking a nuclear reactor with a nuclear-armed missile is a worst-case scenario beyond measure. In terms of outcome, there are few nuclear attack realities that can get any worse. Nuclear weapons exploded in the air, at sea, and on land create varying degrees of radiation and fallout based on yield (size of explosion) and weather (rain vs. wind). Radiation let loose in the atmosphere dissipates over time, rising into the troposphere and moving with the wind. But attacking a nuclear reactor with a nuclear missile all but guarantees a core reactor meltdown that in turn results in a thousands-of-years-long nuclear catastrophe.
This just isn’t true. If you really wanted to cause the most damage you would target downtown LA. Targeting the power plant is just dumb, but the word nuclear is so scary to people that adding two nuclears together seems like a catastrophe “beyond measure” but that’s just not how it works. It’s obviously sensational, but it’s not factual.
On the narrative side, I cannot tell you how much the following scene bugged me. It opens with a contingent of secret service agents storming into the Presidential Emergency Operations Center in order to haul the President to safety, but that’s their SOP, and Jacobsen is basically just describing it. When they waste “several minutes” sitting in Marine One, not taking off because they’re arguing with the National Security Advisor, it’s an added narrative flourish. And not only is it aggravating, it’s also baffling. The reason for the advisor to be arguing makes no sense, but also there’s a nuke on the way. There’s no way the Secret Service would waste five minutes while the national security advisor decided whether he wanted to get on the helicopter or not. Particularly since the novel makes it clear they know that in order to safely escape the blast radius they needed to leave the instant they got to Marine One. Instead they wait for five minutes while this argument goes on, with predictably (very) negative results.
[***End Mild Spoiler***]
There are at least a half dozen other examples I can think of, but this mostly didn’t spoil my appreciation of the book, since the non-fiction bits were so meticulously researched.2
First, a couple of surprising facts I didn’t know:
North Korea has one of the largest submarine fleets in the world. They’re all diesel powered, but it’s believed that, some at least, are equipped with nuclear weapons.
According to Theodore Postol, an MIT professor who was interviewed by Jacobson:
This fire-to-strike time is so short that if the United States had an attack submarine trailing the Soviet ballistic missile submarine, it could not fire a torpedo in time to sink the submarine before it was empty of missiles.
Perhaps this is no longer the case, he does use the word Soviet. Nevertheless it did raise my assessment of the danger of submarine launched nukes, which was already quite high.
Facts such as these are alarming enough, but Jacobson’s central message is that however a nuclear conflict starts it’s highly probable it will end up being an all out exchange.3 The problem is that’s what all the plans call for, and there will be too little time to second guess them. In this respect it reminds me a lot of World War I. Part of the reason that it escalated so quickly from “some damned foolish thing in the Balkans” to total war, is that the German war plan, which required it to fight on two fronts, had no wiggle room. The plan called for them to defeat France before Russia could mobilize and attack, which meant the minute Russia started mobilizing Germany had to attack France. But even so Germany still had hours or even a few days to reflect, the leaders in a nuclear attack are expected to have as little as six minutes for such contemplation.
Jacobson points out that injunctions similar to those contained in the German war plan are scattered all throughout the modern war plans of the various nuclear armed nations. If we’re attacked by even a single missile we have to retaliate, and we should do so in an overwhelming fashion. So if North Korea launches one nuke at us, we have to launch dozens at them. That’s a problem without introducing any other complications, but other complications are inevitable. There are the misunderstandings that would certainly exist in the handful minutes when all this plays out. There’s the panic, and the worry that if you don’t use your weapons you’ll lose them. And the most concrete complication of all. The US can not fire ICBMs at North Korea without those ICBMs overflying Russia, and Russian technology is such that it will have a hard time distinguishing between missiles targeting North Korea, and missiles targeting them.
The Pragmatist's Guide to Relationships: Ruthlessly Optimized Strategies for Dating, Sex, and Marriage
By: Malcolm and Simone Collins
Published: 2020
661 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
This is one of those books where the subtitle is pretty descriptive. I would emphasize the “ruthless” bit. The book is surprisingly Machiavellian.
What's the author's angle?
The Collins have a whole series of “Pragmatist’s Guides”, so that’s one angle. They’re also aggressively pronatal, so I imagine they want to figure out how to pass along this sort of advice to their kids.
Who should read this book?
If you’re in a situation where you’re really having no success getting dates or if you can get dates but then things never go anywhere. This book has some interesting ideas, but it struck me as kind of a last resort sort of thing.
Specific thoughts: The tragedy of modern relationships
Many years ago a friend of mine got divorced, and as a consequence he started second guessing everything. This took the form of reading books like this and also asking people who were happily married for advice on how they had found their wife. I told him that I didn’t have any advice that it just sort of happened. I think for the majority of human history that’s how it worked. Yes, there were a lot of arranged marriages, but when those are successful that success also just sort of happens.
My point is that it’s only recently that strategies of the sort described by this book have been necessary. It’s only with the rise of dating sites, that finding romance has turned into a true numbers game. Maybe this is a good thing, but once again, it seems unlikely.
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder
By: Salman Rushdie
Published: 2024
214 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
Rushdie’s account of nearly being killed by a knife wielding assassin in August of 2022, his subsequent recovery and his thoughts about the entire ordeal
What's the author's angle?
Rushdie, understandably, is not a huge fan of religion, and near the end, the book skirts with being an anti-religious polemic. Beyond that his only angle is trying to work through a horrific event.
Who should read this book?
If you’re profoundly curious about the incident and about Rushdie himself you’ll appreciate this book. I will say I haven’t read anything else he’s written, so I don’t know how this fits with the rest of his oeuvre.
Specific thoughts: Rushdie has lived a profoundly weird life
Ever since Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa in 1989 calling for his death because of The Satanic Verses, Rushdie’s life has been profoundly strange and terrifying, but in 2022 all that seemed to be in the distant past. Not only had it been 33 years since the fatwa and he’d been living unmolested in New York since the early 2000s, but also Rushdie was newly and deeply in love. Somehow a radicalized young Islamist picked this moment to rush on stage while Rushdie was giving a speech and attempted to stab him to death. Fortunately he did not succeed, but it was a very near thing. In the immediate aftermath Rushdie was not expected to pull through, but against very, very long odds, he did.
As you might imagine, the experience left him shaken, but also very reflective. And his reflections are engaging. He also spends quite a bit of time trying to understand the mind of his attacker (who he refuses to name in the book), going so far as to imagine a conversation with him. It’s a profound book, by a talented writer. I could have wished his profundity was more spiritual, but perhaps I already have enough of that, and what I really need is more secular profundity.
Fiction Reviews
Arkham: (The Weird of Hali #7)
Published: 2023
250 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
The final volume in Greer’s “What if Cthulhu and the Old Ones were the good guys?” series.
Who should read this book?
I’ve enjoyed this series (see other reviews here). It's not as flashy as some sci-fi and fantasy series I’ve read, but I think that’s part of its charm—It adds an air of realism to the entire endeavor. Obviously you shouldn’t read book seven without reading the previous six books.
Specific thoughts:
As conclusions to series go, this is better than average. I’ve often remarked on how hard it is to stick the landing on something this long and complicated, but I think Greer creates a satisfyingly dramatic conclusion. Also, even though, as with most series, you know how it’s going to end, he still creates a lot of tension around that ending. Finally, and most importantly, he ties up all the loose ends, or at least any loose end of significant enough size that I remembered it.
Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian Barbarian: The Complete Weird Tales Omnibus
By: Robert E. Howard, Compiled by: Finn J D John
Published: 2017 (Stories originally published between 1929 and 1935)
860 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
A complete collection of all of the Conan the Barbarian stories published during Howard’s life (or, in one case, very shortly thereafter).
Who should read this book?
These days when people think of fantasy, what they’re really referring to is the sword and sorcery subgenre (S&S). This is particularly the case with video and tabletop games. If you are at all interested in that subgenre and you want to experience some of that genre’s first and best stories, this is the book for you.
Specific thoughts: They don’t make ‘em like they used to.
All through the course of this collection one is struck by numerous differences between these stories and the kind of stories one might read today.
Certainly the swords and sorcery genre was more straightforward at its inception. Over the years there have been many additional innovations to the genre, and it could be argued that modern S&S stories are more complex and interesting. On the other hand there is a purity to Howard’s stories that is very gripping. Nor should the plainness of these stories be exaggerated, Howard’s world is incredibly rich, and he manages to create that richness in far fewer words than most modern authors.
Of course one of the biggest differences is the way in which gender is handled. I’m sure there are some who would be utterly scandalized by the female voluptuaries who appear in (nearly) every story. And there were moments where even I, broadminded as I am, raised an eyebrow, but in general an accusation of sexism would be misplaced. The female characters in the collection are almost all interesting, determined, and resourceful. Yes, every last one of them is a physical goddess as well, but it was the Great Depression and Howard had to make his living somehow. Also, even those women who had been trained in combat were no match for Conan physically, but that is in fact the way the world is.
Finally, these stories are overall pessimistic about the durability of civilization. Most obviously they all take place in what Howard calls the Hyborian Age, a period around 10,000 years ago, which puts it after the fall of Atlantis, but before the rise of ancient civilizations like Mesopotamia and Egypt. The setting assumes that Atlantis didn’t last, the civilizations of the Hyborian age didn’t last, and as such we probably won’t last either.
Additionally, by making the main character a barbarian, one who is able to easily navigate and triumph amidst the decadence of civilization, Howard is commenting on the vigor of civilization more generally. This is stated most starkly at the end of the story Beyond the Black River.
“Barbarism is the natural state of mankind," the borderer said, still staring somberly at the Cimmerian. "Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And barbarism must always ultimately triumph.”
There are four ways of looking at this.
It’s easy to forget the chaos of the interwar period, and the scar left on the soul of the West by the insane horror of World War I. Perhaps Howard was just reflecting the pessimism of the time he lived in. Looking for any truth or meaning beyond that is foolish.
We can establish a useful dichotomy between barbarism and civilization. But having done that Howard is just wrong. Civilization is the default state and barbarism is the unnatural exception. At least going back to the point where civilization and barbarism were useful categories.
Similar to the last point, barbarism and civilization are both useful categories, and Howard was actually right about which was historically ascendent, or at least he was up until very recently, but something has changed such that civilization has permanently triumphed.
Howard was right back then, and he continues to be right. We live in a very unnatural time, and eventually barbarism will return.
I’m not sure which it is, how could I be? I’m limited to a very tiny view of a very small historical period, also I can’t see the future. But this is one of the central features of the Conan stories: they illustrate how infinitesimally short the modern period is. Sure the stories are only set 10,000 years in the past, but, for me at least, that reminded me of how deep the past is. Regardless of what time frame you chose, whether it’s the 300 million years large land vertebrates have existed, or the 66 million years since mammals started to dominate the scene, or the 6 million years that hominids have been around or even just the 300,000 years since humans emerged, the modern world is just the tiniest percentage of that history. (Again this is the case regardless of where you mark the beginning of the modern world.)
Given that this is the case, I think some form of either option three or four is true. Either civilization will go away, or we live in a most extraordinary time. In either case we can probably use men of adventure like Conan.
Stories of Your Life and Others
By: Ted Chiang
Published: 2002
336 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
A collection of science fiction short stories by Ted Chiang.
Who should read this book?
If you like your science fiction packaged in the medium of a short story (less character development, more twists, lots of idea exploration) then you will enjoy this book.
Specific thoughts: Lots of great stuff
I think overall I like Chiang’s Exhalation collection better, nevertheless, this is a very solid and enjoyable collection. This book contains the story, “Stories of Your Life”, which was later turned into the movie Arrival with Amy Adams. I can see why, it’s quite good. Other standouts for me were the first story about the Tower of Babel, and “Division by Zero”. “Seventy-Two Letters” had the best twist ending, and also I’m pretty sure it had to have played some part in inspiring Scott Alexander’s novel Unsong.
He Who Fights with Monsters Series
By: Shirtaloon
Published: 2022
512 Pages
Published: 2022
622 Pages
Briefly, what is this series about?
As is generally the case with these sorts of series, the main character, Jason Asano, ends up being the only person who can save the world. In that respect this series is much like many other fantasy series, though I will say that Asano does it with a snark that’s very much in character with the age we live in. This isn’t a good thing, but fortunately, unlike some others mostly it’s just Jason that’s snarky, it’s not universal.
Who should read this series?
Now that we’re up to book six my recommendation all comes down to whether you’ve already started the series or not. If you have, you should continue. If you haven’t I would wait until I’ve finished the series (which I will) and I can give you a final assessment.
Specific thoughts- Book 6: A prophet is not without honor, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.
[***Mild Spoiler***]
In book six Jason is still on Earth, and it’s mostly the story about how, despite saving the world, no one appreciates him. This is an extension of the theme of book five, and it feels like if Shirtaloon had been a more skillful writer it could have been one book. Also in book six it becomes clear that most of the characters in the book are more interesting than Jason. I think in part this is because we’ve seen so much of Jason and been through so many of the standard beats that there’s nothing really fresh left to do with him. Whether Shirtaloon can recover from this remains to be seen.
[***End Mild Spoiler***]
Specific thoughts- Book 7: There is such a thing as too much bleakness
Book Six was an exercise in hitting the same beats that we’ve already seen dozens of times. Book Seven is very similar except it mostly is only hitting the darker beats. The most helpful review on Amazon put it this way:
It's becoming obvious that this story, though relatively well written, is a pratice [sic] of seeing how much suffering the reader and the character can experience without completely alienating the fans of the fantasy genre.
As he said the writing is interesting, and the world building has been better than average. Also I think my tolerance for character suffering is probably higher than his, so I still enjoy reading the books, but it’s tough when the least enjoyable element is the main character. (Which is not to say he’s intolerable, just that he doesn’t compare favorably to other elements which are quite good.)
Religious Reviews
Astrophilosophy, Exotheology, and Cosmic Religion: Extraterrestrial Life in a Process Universe
By: Andrew M. Davis (editor), Roland Faber (editor), and Various
Published: 2024
574 Pages
Briefly, what is this book about?
Astrophilosophy, Exotheology, and Cosmic Religion! Isn’t it obvious from the title? Oh and also aliens!
What are the author’s angles?
This is a collection of academic papers written by people in the discipline of process philosophy. (Think Alfred North Whitehead, Henri Bergson, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.) This leans more towards the theology side of things than the extraterrestrial life side.
Who should read this book?
It’s pretty specialized and dense, if you don’t already feel like reading it based on the title and the description, then it’s probably not for you. But if it is for you, it’s really for you!
Specific thoughts: Deep theology mixed with deep futurism
Back at the end of March I went to a conference dedicated to the thinking of Iain McGilchrist with McGilchrist himself in attendance. It was quite interesting and I was able to have a lovely conversation with McGilchrist on the second day of the conference. The conference was put on jointly by two process theology organizations. This is not my first encounter with process theology, but I am by no means an expert. I will say that they’re very good at grappling with futuristic ideas from a theological perspective, which is something I’m also very interested in. As McGilchrist is the foremost expert on hemispheric differences in the brain, there was quite a bit of discussion about how that might relate to AI. But also, as part of the conference I became aware of this book, which is all about the theological implications of extraterrestrial life. So, somewhat indirectly, this conference ended up scratching two of my big itches.
Most of the people speaking at the conference at least came from a Christian tradition, and many were very actively Christian. Which is good because I can’t speak much to other traditions, and how they might feel about extraterrestrial life (or AI for that matter). But for Christians extraterrestrial intelligence is potentially a problem. To put it bluntly: does the Atonement of Christ cover non-human intelligences? Does it need to?
You won’t find a definitive answer in this book, but at least they acknowledge that it’s a question, one which will need to be answered at some point. (Or not, they devote surprisingly little space to the Fermi paradox.) Beyond this central question the book acknowledges that the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligences actually raises numerous theological questions. I can’t possibly cover all of the questions or all of the answers, but I would like to highlight a list of principles4 presented by Andrew M. Davis, one of the book’s editors and beyond that a heck of a nice guy.
Humanity exemplifies metaphysical principles that are utterly central to the universe.
Humanity exemplifies biological, mental, and moral antecedents that are metaphysically central to the universe.
Humanity exemplifies the same metaphysical principles that are expressed in various intensities throughout the great chain of being in the universe.
Cosmotheology must be open to truly radical and non-supernatural conceptions of God, a God grounding and exemplifying the metaphysical conditions of cosmic evolution.
Cosmotheology must provide the ontological basis and stimulus for ideals of moral reverence and respect in the nature of things.
Cosmotheology must embrace human destiny as inextricably linked to the destiny of the cosmos as an infinite evolutionary expression of the metaphysical conditions chiefly exemplified in the divine.
In a sense most, if not all of these principles, are variations on the Copernican or mediocrity principle, but also in a sense an extension of it — we can view ourselves as reflecting the underlying metaphysical order of the cosmos. And because of this if there is a God we should be reflected in Him and He in us. Which is a very Mormon/LDS way of looking at things.
I didn’t get any writing done while in Dar, which is probably how vacations should work. So my long wandering in the wilderness continues, perhaps literally, you should see the road from Dar es Salaam to Kilwa! And the road from the Dar airport into town is even worse, though it is supposedly under construction. Which is also definitely a metaphor for my writing.
Keith Sward, The Legend of Henry Ford (New York: Rinehart, 1948), p. 49.
At least that’s how it appeared, how does someone even know anymore in this age of epistemic chaos?
Particularly alarming given the recent report that some US officials thought there was a 50% chance of Russia using a nuke back in October of 2022.
There’s a whole backstory to this list, that I don’t have time to get into. They’re actually inversions of another list given by Steven J. Dick. Dick actually contributes the essay which precedes Davis’ but his list is taken from elsewhere.
I agree the 'plot' she painted was a bit contrived. Her motives, though, were to explore a full out nuclear war so in some sense her 'characters' had to be doomed from the start in order to illustrate the whole picture for us. The crux where this was a problem was when the US decided to launch many missiles at North Korea in response, which put Russia in the awkward position of having to 'trust us' as they watched hundreds of dots coming over the north pole at them.
I feel a President would likely decide to use only submarine and non-ICBMs for now least we cause Russia to do a mass launch. On the other hand, the urgency to hit everything and anything in North Korea to stop additional launches (remember they have theirs on trucks so we might need a lot of bombs) could put massive pressure on a President to hit every possible place mobile launchers could be hiding. Even for a small nation like NK, that would require a lot of nukes.
I don't think she was that wrong about hitting a nuclear power plant. Let's keep in mind:
1. We know not only is Chernobyl still radioactive, it's still dangerous. Russian troops reported got radiation sickness after digging ditches near the 'no-go' zone. The bulk of Chernobyl's radioactive material, though, was never released. It's contained in a massive structure where it will probably not be a problem for ages, that is unless someone does something stupid like hit it with a nuke.
2. So if you were going to hit the US with a single nuke or two, does it make sense to hit LA or the plant? Well it really depends on the motivation. If you want to kill a lot of people very fast, LA is a good target. If you want to leave 'your mark' for centuries. Well the canyon will probably do the trick. You can say that isn't rational but then neither is simply wanting to kill the most possible. That leads us to...
3. The fall of the liberal order on an international scale is not causing it to be replaced with a different order but a type of nihilism. One cannot trust nuclear plants won't be targeted either by 'gentlemen's agreement' or the rationality of regimes. The presumption must be norms and rules will not work as reliably as before.
The downstream consequence of this is that this is another knock on nuclear power. It was always a risk with nuclear but the assumption in the Cold War was that nuclear war could not be limited and if you have a full scale nuclear war we're all dead regardless, or at least the global north is close enough to dead. But now the consideration should be that a limited outbreak is something that could happen, and if it happens once it could happen many times. Not only is that bad for nuclear in developed nations, it should cause us to be less eager to encourage nuclear in developing nations.